


A Thousand Different Faces

by Norathar



Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norathar/pseuds/Norathar
Summary: Each chapter will be an alternate de Sardet with a different possible ending. (Based off of a discussion with a few friends about some what-ifs and alternate ideas for the ending - what would Constantin have done if de Sardet had refused either choice, the wish that Constantin could have had more dialogue after that final choice, that the companions could have accompanied you into the heart, etc.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	A Thousand Different Faces

Amelie de Sardet: The Nadaig

“No! Stop!” The corrupted _nadaig baro_ roared its displeasure, but paused its attack as Constantin stepped forward, extending a hand in command. “Step back.”

It obeyed, and Constantin turned to face his cousin. “I do not desire your death. I’m sorry.”

His voice was tinged with regret, but there was no acceptance in Amelie de Sardet’s voice as she advanced on him, demanding, “Why? Why have you done this?”

“But for you, for us! So that we may live free at last.”

“This makes no sense. Constantin, it’s madness,” she pleaded. She thought of the journal entries she’d found in his office, page after page of raving and delusion; the words were the same as the ones on those pages, but so much harder to hear coming from his lips.

“You don’t understand because you’re still attached to the old world. This old, dying world, which, to survive, has betrayed, used, and manipulated us, and would not have hesitated to kill us.”

“Yes,” de Sardet broke in. “I am attached to the old world. Constantin—”

“How?” Anger flashed in his eyes. “My dear cousin, this world has tried to kill you as often as it has me. The same poisoned chalice passed your lips as mine, and had your bond to this island not protected you, the mad doctor would have killed us both.” 

_The mad doctor._ She stared at him. _As if you had the right to call anyone else mad._

“It was only your bond that protected me…as my bond does now. My bonds,” he said, gesturing to the green veins that overlaid the black scars left from the malichor. “Bonds that I would share with you!”

“But not with anyone else,” she said.

“No one else deserves them,” said Constantin. “Who among us would you raise to godhood? The natives, who have ignored the potential of this power, squandering it at every turn? Your companions the bishop and the scientist, emblems of their countries’ corruption? A Naut captain? _Kurt_?”

His laughter then was ugly, and de Sardet hated the sound. “Yes,” she said, remembering Constantin’s disbelieving laughter when she’d told him she’d given her affections to their former master-at-arms. “I love him, Constantin. I have already promised to share my life with him.” She held up her left hand: where she wore a magic ring upon the fourth finger of her right hand, she had an ordinary golden ring upon the fourth finger of her left. “We had Petrus perform the ceremony early this morning.” _Because I asked him to. I wanted Kurt to know that if we lived, I would spend the rest of my life with him._

Constantin stared at it, his lower lip trembling, and she could see him mouth a single word, echoing his speech from before: _Betrayed._

“No, Constantin,” she said desperately. “Not a betrayal. Never that. You are my cousin, and I love you dearly, but…surely it is not a betrayal to love another, to have friends, a life that is not wholly attached to yours. I could never betray you.”

“Then why have you come here, if not to join me?”

“To convince you to stop,” she said. “You must. Constantin—” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she swayed on her feet, exhausted. The _nadaig_ ’s breath had burned her, and the rocks that had fallen from the ceiling had struck her, leaving her bruised and bloodied. Overcome with despair, she collapsed.

Constantin’s reaction was immediate. “My dear cousin—” He rushed to her side, bending down. “Are you all right?”

She stared at him, her vision blurred by tears. “How can you ask? You set a _nadaig_ upon me and _now_ you ask if I’m all right?”

“Believe me, I did not wish you hurt.”

“How can I believe that? It is not the first time. When I first discovered you in that circle, you told that _nadaig_ not to kill me, but you didn’t tell it not to hurt me. It could have shattered my spine and cracked my skull…and you would have let it, if it delayed me.”

“No,” Constantin protested. “I did not intend…I did not think…”

“You didn’t give the same orders for any of my companions, either. My friends,” she said. “Petrus, who knew us as children. Aphra, who ensured that Doctor Asili would see justice for what he did to you. Siora, who helped me convince Catasach to come to you. Vasco, who you bedded on the voyage here. Kurt, who trained us both for more than half our lives, who saved both our lives in the coup…who I love so dearly.” Constantin stiffened, but Amelie de Sardet pressed on. “Even now, they are all fighting…perhaps even dying…because of the beasts you are sending against them. Don’t you know how much that thought hurts me?”

“You call them your friends, but they abandoned you. Why else did you come here alone?”

“Because I knew you would kill them if they did,” she lashed out, then burst into tears, racking sobs that made Constantin rock back on his heels, looking as if she had hit him. “I didn’t even know if you would hurt me…but I hoped you would at least think twice. I knew you would kill the rest of them without a second thought.”

“What have they ever cared for me? For us?”

“How can you say that? Petrus has treated me like his daughter. He helped me gather information about the Mother Cardinal to better protect you. Aphra helped me bring Doctor Asili to justice for his crimes against us. Vasco has been at my side since I landed, risking his life to help protect me, and Siora has been with me nearly as long. And Kurt…you know what Kurt did for us. If not for him, Commander Torsten would have killed us both.”

“Did he do that for me, I wonder?” Again, jealousy and resentment tinged Constantin’s voice, but for once, his tone was more petulant than venomous; it reminded her of the person he’d been before his illness, more a childish, petty grudge than the paranoid fury that drove him now. “Do you think he would have raised his sword to save me if your life had not been at stake?”

“Yes,” de Sardet said without hesitation. “He had pledged to protect both of us. Regardless of his feelings for me, Constantin – and he did not confess those feelings until well after the coup – his honor was pledged to protect us both.”

“And I accused him of insolence.” Constantin let out the smallest of laughs; he seated himself next to her, as if they were sprawled on the lawn in one of the gardens back in the Prince’s Palace of Serene, not in the heart of a dead volcano with a native god looming over them. “I suppose I was lucky he didn’t turn on us then and there.”

“It would have taken far more than a few insults to do that. I’m sure he forgave you. You were under so much strain.” Constantin had been diagnosed with the malichor literally moments before the Guard’s coup.

“Yes,” Constantin said, and she felt his mood shift dangerously. “Because Asili had poisoned me, and was about to kill me. Don’t you see? That day proves why the old world must be wiped away. First, I learn that I have been infected with a deadly disease…poisoned for no more reason than a madman’s curiosity…and then our own trusted guards turn on us, betray us…how many times did someone attempt to murder you on that island?” He held up his hand. “The Bridge Alliance’s spy. The men from the Bridge who followed you to the rebels’ camp while you were under a flag of truce. That inquisitor in Theleme threatened you the very first time you visited…and I know that wasn’t the last trouble you had with those inquisitors! The—”

De Sardet held up a hand, but Constantin persisted. “Surely you must see how ridiculous it is! How can you argue for their survival, when all they have ever done is betray and manipulate you?”

“They are the worst that their people have to offer, but they aren’t all bad,” she said. “In sweeping the old world away, you would destroy all that is good. I know that you have been isolated in New Serene, alone…but I have seen more of this island and the people on it, and know that they are not all bad.”

“Not all bad. Is that the best you can say of them?”

“There is good in this world.”

“This dying world?” Constantin’s eyes shone as he said, “I have been offered unrivalled power allowing me to get rid of this! To send the old world back to its inevitable death and to build something new here…something unique!”

“No, Constantin,” she said sadly. “You have not been offered power. You have taken it.”

“From whom? The natives have done nothing but waste it. They are offered such power, and yet they refuse!”

“They do not refuse,” she said. “But they give as well as take.” She thought of her own relationship with Constantin, and then of the relationships she had forged with her friends. “All our lives, I gave everything to you, and asked nothing in return.”

Constantin stared at her. “That isn’t true,” he protested, but she shook her head.

“The night we left for Teer Fradee, you went out celebrating. You asked me to join you. I refused you, and you pouted – but you went. You never thought of staying behind. Even though my mother was sick and dying of the malichor, even though you knew I would never see her again – you left me, and afterwards, you never asked about her, not once. You were too excited for the great adventure.”

“You can hardly blame me. It was to be our great adventure! Even if I was a naïve fool, and did not know what would await us. And…I hoped to cheer you,” he said, though that note rang somewhat false. “I thought that celebration would take your mind off of what was to come.”

“If that was your only motive, why did you go alone?”

He dropped his gaze from hers.

“Kurt asked,” she said, very softly. “He did his best to comfort me. He told me he knew how hard it was. He was kind.”

Constantin looked stricken. The mad light went out of his eyes, and once more she saw the cousin she knew. “Kurt? Kind? I can hardly believe…” Constantin’s voice trailed off. “I realize now that I have neglected you, my fair cousin. I am truly sorry.”

He looked to the ritual dagger at his side. “I will make it up to you, I swear! I have come here to offer you a new world, a gift to you. You and I could be its new gods. The immortal and benevolent monarchs!”

“ _Benevolent_? Constantin, you were willing to kill a native family for merely having seen you.”

“Because they would have spoiled everything! What are a few lives when the world hangs in the balance?”

“Everything,” she said. “How can you say otherwise? How can you say that their lives aren’t worth as much as your own, or as much as mine?” She bit her lip, reaching out to touch his face, and saw him look at her with hope in his eyes. _Even now, he thinks I will agree. Even now, he believes I might join him._ “Constantin, you sound like your father.”

He wrenched himself away from her. “How can you say that? I’ve seen death, cousin, and I understood the vanity of it all! My father’s ruses, just so he could earn more power…the political bowing and scraping to preserve corrupted nations!”

“What were all your lies, if not a ruse to gain power? What is this bonding ritual for, if not to create a nation of your own?”

“A new nation,” he said. “A better nation.”

“Better for who? The natives you will kill if they do not submit? The men and women whose lives you will destroy when you turn them from these shores?”

“For us,” Constantin said, and again his eyes shone with the hint of madness. “Together, we can build a better world.”

“Together?” she asked. “Alone?”

“If you are so insistent on sparing their lives, perhaps it can be done.” Constantin spoke airily, even off-handedly. “I will show you I can be merciful.”

“Perhaps? No, Constantin. There is no ‘better world’ for me that does not include the people I love…all of them,” she said. “Vasco, Siora, Petrus, Aphra…and yes, Kurt.”

“All my life, I have given you everything. I love you, Constantin, and you will always be my dearest friend and cousin…but you cannot be my only friend.”

“My fair cousin,” he said again. “My adorable cousin. My fair cousin, my lovely cousin—”

“Not entirely yours,” she answered, and again he looked as if she’d slapped him.

“Then whose?”

“I am my own person,” she said. “My own.”

“Except that you have shared yourself with others.”

She thought of Kurt, calling her “my sweet Excellency,” and the amazement in his eyes when she’d responded with “my love.” _Never expectation, never possessiveness, but a mutual sharing, what Siora called “_ minundhanem _.”_

“I have,” she said. “But they have shared themselves with me. They’ve given back.”

“Then bind yourself to me, here, now, and I will share everything with you! I offer you an entire world!” Constantin rose to his feet; holding the dagger, he opened his hand. “Bind yourself to me, and we will share all! Whatever my mistakes, I will correct them. We can rule this world together!”

De Sardet remained on the ground, staring up at him. “Oh, Constantin.”

“I mean it,” he said.

“I know you do.”

“But you don’t believe me? You think I’m lying?”

“I know you believe you’re telling the truth,” she answered. “But…” She looked to him. “When have you ever put my desires first? When have you ever listened to me? When have I ever been able to stop you from doing something you didn’t want to do?”

“You kept me from scaling the ramparts of Serene,” he said lightly. “You saved my life that day.” He took a step forward, his hand still extended.

“Because I could not follow,” she said. “Constantin, I cannot follow you now. If I did, it would destroy us both.”

“How so?”

“I could not resist you. If I joined myself with you, you would say that you would listen, that my desires would matter…but I know they would not. They would be swept away, along with the life I’ve built for myself, along with everything I’ve accomplished here…and all that would be left would be your desires, your wants, your plans.”

“I love you, but I cannot plunge to my death to please you. I cannot give up everything I am, everything I will ever be, to stand at your side.”

“You would be a goddess!”

“But I would not be myself.” Again, tears began to roll down her cheeks. “I hardly recognize you now. You speak of unimaginable power, of godhood, of wanton murder and destruction in pursuit of your goals…how can you hear yourself speak and not hear your father? How can you speak of sending an entire world to its death so that this new world can become your playground?”

“When we came here, you spoke of helping Siora’s people, of averting a war…you spoke to me of a lasting peace, of a prosperous city, a happy people. How can you have forgotten?” She did not wait for him to answer. “You speak of building a better world…but for who?”

“For us!”

“For you,” she persisted. “Constantin, I love you, but I cannot join you. Will you kill me, too?”

He looked stricken then. “No,” he said. “Never.” He took another step toward her, until he was standing over her. “Join me.”

“No,” she said again. “If you want to destroy the old world, Constantin, you will have to kill me with it.” She got to her feet; facing him, she spread her arms wide, opening her hands to show that she had no weapon, and no defense against him. “I will not fight you. I cannot hurt you. Would you kill me?”

“No,” he protested, advancing on her, dagger in hand. For a moment, she thought he might actually stab her, but then he reached forward, grasped her arm, and pulled it up. “Open your palm.”

“No,” she said.

“If you would only bond with me…I could show you my plans, make you understand…”

“Would you?” she asked. “Force me?” The thought terrified her; she hadn’t considered it before then, but she wondered if Constantin could bond her to him unwillingly, the same way he had corrupted the island’s _nadaig_. 

“Once you’ve seen, I won’t have to.” He sliced into her palm, and de Sardet realized with horror that she had no energy left to defend herself.

“Constantin, no…”

He pressed her hand against his. “My dear cousin, there’s nothing to fear, I swear to you. First, I will show you what I have planned…and then, you can bond yourself here, in the heart, and help me destroy this dying old god!”

“No,” she protested, and the world around them gave way to flashes of visions.

De Sardet had experienced visions before, both while investigating Derdre’s people and while undergoing the trial of the waters: then, she had been a lightning-struck tree, a raindrop ascending into the clouds.

Now, she was Constantin. She felt herself racked with the pain of the malichor, her growing despair as the days passed and he was left alone while de Sardet brought him healer after healer; she saw herself through his eyes, her hopefulness that the holy man from San Matheus or the physician of Hikmet would prove his savior, and felt his own desire to feign wellness for her.

She felt his hope when Catasach came, and his despair as his treatments failed; she felt her body growing weak, her arms and legs marred by dark veins, the loneliness.

And then, rejuvenation: the euphoria of life coursing through his veins, the feeling of connection to the island itself, the wellspring of power; there was a moment where she was Teer Fradee, where she could feel the life inherent in each blade of grass, each living thing, and it was beyond anything she had ever experienced.

The feeling went away, and left her wanting more. It was, she realized, the feeling of being given a drink of water after days of dying of thirst; it was the relief that came from an absence of pain after suffering for so long that he had scarcely been able to remember what it was like not to hurt.

 _That is why he persisted,_ she realized as the vision faded. _Not for power, not for building a better world…but to ensure that he would never suffer again. It was a cure for the malichor he sought, all along, and a way to protect himself._

 _To protect us,_ de Sardet thought, because she knew that he had also been driven by concern for her. _Oh, Constantin, whatever else you did, whatever else you have become, deep down, this all came about because you were scared to die…not a power-hungry madman, but my beloved cousin, so terribly ill…_

 _My cousin,_ she thought, and realized with a start that her thoughts were still her own. _We are not bonded. I am still myself._ She felt no link to Teer Fradee, or to Constantin, even though her hand was still bleeding, Constantin’s blood smeared against her own.

She stared down at her palm, and then at Constantin. He looked back at her, his face slack with horror. “Is that how you see me?” he breathed. “Is that what I have become?” He looked at his own palm, then hers. “Is this what I _am_?”

Only then did she realize that he had not tried to force her into bonding with him; instead, he had tried to show her a vision of what he intended, and instead had showed her his innermost self. “Constantin,” she began.

“I saw you,” he said. “In Serene, on this island…learning of your heritage from Father Petrus, watching the natives’ ritual with Aphra…speaking to Vasco of the Nauts and Siora of the natives…with Kurt.” He grew very quiet then. “There truly is so much of you I’ve never shared, isn’t there? So much I never knew.”

“I’m sorry—” de Sardet began, not knowing what else to say.

He shook his head. “How could I ask you to apologize? After seeing everything you’ve done for me…feeling your concern, your despair…your love. Oh, my dear cousin, I wish I had only done half so much for you.”

“You still can,” she said. “Cease this madness…this bonding. I pulled you down from the ramparts of Serene when we were children; I saved you then. I can do it again.” She extended her hand – not the wounded one, but the one that Constantin had left unbloodied. “Take my hand. Come outside.”

“Do you truly think they would let me leave? You have brought an army here.”

“I could not have come alone,” she began, but he shook his head, entirely subdued.

“I do not wish you to think that I blame you. No. You are right. How could you have done otherwise? It was I who set a _nadaig_ on you…and who did so again, here, when you came to save me.”

“I could tell them to stand down,” she said. “I could tell them that the attacks will cease only if you are allowed to live.”

“Live freely? How could I? After everything I have done…people have died,” he said hollowly. “I have killed them. What could I possibly do that would make up for it all?”

 _Give back,_ a voice came, and de Sardet realized that it was _en on mil frichtimen_ , answering Constantin. _You have taken, and what you have taken must be given back._

“But…he has taken so much…”

Constantin looked at her, and she saw that he had realized the truth before she had. “I would have to give everything,” he whispered. “As Vinbarr did.”

De Sardet remembered Vinbarr’s transformation: there had been a look of savage glee in his eyes as he had surrendered to the island, pure defiance as his body had twisted and changed and become nothing human.

“Constantin,” she said, and extended her hand toward him – not to surrender, or to join him, but to give him a hug.

He understood, and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Oh, cousin,” he said, and with a start she realized that he had not prefaced the endearment with a possessive. _He is letting me go._ “I am so, so sorry for all that I have put you through.”

“There has to be another way,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“But I do,” he said. “How else to make up for my crimes? How else to repay this island for all I have taken? This native god is right; I must give back all that I have taken…and that will, I fear, take all I have to give.”

The _nadaig baro_ approached them again, but this time it ignored her completely; it faced Constantin, looking directly at him. “If this is what I am to become…” He looked to de Sardet, and beneath the crown of branches, the pallid skin with its network of green and black veins, and unnaturally shining eyes, she saw her cousin, pensive and sad. “It is better than what I am now.”

“But—”

“I cannot be what I was before. You must know that. There is no going back,” he said, and took both his hands in hers, gripping her lightly by the fingers to avoid the cut on her palm. Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against hers. “You have given so much to help me, tried so hard…there is no one who would have done more.”

“You are right: you gave everything to me, and expected nothing in return. Let me do this for you. Let me give you this world, a better world…the world you will build with those you love. For you…and for the person I once was.”

De Sardet was crying again, but her tears were of resignation and grief, not horror and despair. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could have found a cure. I wish I could have found a way to save you.”

“You did everything you could.” He pulled her close to him, giving her one last, long hug, and then pulled back, holding her by the shoulders. “I am truly sorry for everything.”

“Constantin—”

“Surely you would not deprive me of a chance to apologize? You have nothing to be sorry for, but I…there is everything in the world for me to regret. I have neglected you, ignored you, believed you to be little more than an extension of myself…and now I will know what it is to give everything to protect others, as you have done for me.”

Her cousin’s eyes met hers. “It is my turn to protect you now. My turn to make amends.” With that, he stooped and picked up the dagger he had cast aside. Very deliberately, he knelt, opening a new wound on his uninjured palm before pressing it into the earth.

Constantin looked up at her one last time. “Goodbye.”

Amelie de Sardet saw him change. The branches fanned out to become a crest, his limbs elongated, and his skin rippled and changed, becoming the bark-like hide of the _nadaig baro_ , the black veins of the malichor and the green veins of the _on ol menawi_ disappearing. His armor burst and fell to the ground as his torso expanded, and in the space of an eye he was twice the height he had been a moment before, then twice that height again, though throughout the entirety of the transformation he remained roughly at eye level with de Sardet, keeping his hand pressed upon the earth, his eyes fixed on hers.

His eyes were the last to change. They widened and turned, Constantin’s pale eyes becoming the vivid yellow-green of the _nadaig_ , and she saw him look at her one last time before he closed them.

When he opened them, the spark that had made him Constantin had vanished; a _nadaig_ looked back at her. There might have been some faint look of recognition, some residual understanding, but she knew her cousin was forever gone.

The _nadaig baro_ stood there for a long moment, staring at her, and she reached out a hand, placing it on its forearm. “Goodbye, Constantin,” she whispered, and then it darted away, moving toward the enormous tree in the heart of the volcano.

 _Flesh of my earth, you have saved us all._ The ghostly voice of _en on mil frichtimen_ resonated through the cavern. _Thank you._

She sat back down on the cavern floor then, staring up at the _nadaig_ perched in the trees, and waited until her companions came to claim her. They had all survived, and came rushing through the entrance not long after. Somehow, the _nadaig_ _baro_ knew that they were not unwelcome; none leapt from the trees, nor moved to attack, as they had done during their first visit to the sanctuary.

“My sweet Excellency. Are you all right?”

“Where is Constantin? What happened?” Vasco demanded.

“He gave himself to the earth,” said de Sardet. “He is a _nadaig_ now.”

“A guardian of the sanctuary,” said Siora.

“He gave himself over to the island?” Aphra asked.

“My child, I am sorry for your loss. I know it must have been terribly difficult.”

De Sardet leaned on Kurt. “It was. It is.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “But it is what he wanted…and I am glad that I did not have to stop him myself.”

Kurt put an arm around her. “So am I, Green Blood. Let’s go home.”


End file.
